helm-charts

When to use

• A service is moving from kubectl apply -f or kustomize to Helm.
• An existing chart has drifted into copy-paste per environment and needs consolidation.
• Generating a library of internal charts for consistent service shape.

Do not use this skill when the answer is Kustomize + overlays (simpler for small apps) or Argo CD ApplicationSet without templating needs.

Inputs

• chart_name — matches the service name (checkout-api).
• app_version — app semver (1.4.2). Chart version (0.x.y) is independent and tracks chart changes.
• image — default repository, e.g. ghcr.io/acme/checkout-api.
• port — container port and service port (e.g. 8080).
• ingress_host — optional, e.g. checkout.staging.acme.example.
• enable_hpa — bool, default true for anything that handles user traffic.
• secrets — list of keys the app reads from env; the chart emits ExternalSecret or reads from a named Secret.
• configmap — map of non-secret config keys.
• namespace — default namespace name.

Outputs

• A chart directory charts/<chart_name>/ containing:
  • Chart.yaml, values.yaml, values-staging.yaml, values-prod.yaml.
  • templates/ with _helpers.tpl, deployment.yaml, service.yaml, ingress.yaml, configmap.yaml, hpa.yaml, serviceaccount.yaml, poddisruptionbudget.yaml, NOTES.txt.
  • .helmignore, README.md (generated with helm-docs).
  • ci/ with sample test values for chart-testing (ct).

Tool dependencies

• helm >= 3.12.
• kubeconform and/or kubeval for schema validation.
• helm-docs for README generation.
• chart-testing (ct) for lint-install-upgrade tests in CI.
• Optional: helm diff plugin for live diffing.

Procedure

0. Detect the stack

Confirm Helm + Kubernetes is the packaging system the user wants before scaffolding:

helm version --short 2>/dev/null                      # Helm 3.x installed?
kubectl config current-context 2>/dev/null            # K8s cluster reachable?
ls charts/ helm/ 2>/dev/null                          # existing Helm charts?
ls kustomize/ overlays/ 2>/dev/null                   # Kustomize instead?
ls terraform/ main.tf 2>/dev/null | head              # Terraform-managed K8s resources?
find . -maxdepth 2 -name 'Chart.yaml' 2>/dev/null     # existing chart in this repo?